Micro Managing
by ReconstructWriter
Summary: Episode Rewrite Challenge: Why settle for critiquing a work when you can aim to write something better? Micro Management as it could have been.
1. Chapter 1

"Look out Tucker!"

As a veteran of many ghost battles, Tucker had enough experience to know that when someone shouts 'look out,' actually looking is a bad idea. Dodging and ducking is a better one. So when Sam yelled at him, the techno-geek flattened himself against the harsh metal of a dumpster to get away from where he'd been standing.

He'd barely moved when Skulker's deadly knife sliced his throat as it whipped past at blinding speed.

Blood sprayed in the night and for just one second Sam's heart stopped. A massive sabertoothed cat crept softly behind her.

"Just a scratch." Tucker yelled, pulling his hand away and wiping off the blood. More welled up in its place but not the gush of a nicked artery. Sam felt her heart start again.

"Crazy idiot!" Sam turned away from him just in time to nail the pouncing prehistoric ghost with a Fenton Thermos. She switched to an ecto-gun, this weapon aimed at the ghost hunter who brought them all here.

Skulker dodged the hail of ecto-fire from Sam only for the halfa to blindside him. Not a quib came from the ghost boy, his green eyes blazed with the same deadly intent as his hands. Skulker tried to dodge but Phantom was faster. One glowing fist punched through the ghost hunter's arm.

"What is with you Ghost Child? Agh!" A rain of scrap metal fell to the roof of a nearby apartment complex as Danny blew the arm off. Skulker could only gape at his right shoulder, not even a stump left of the limb. Never had the halfa attacked with such viciousness.

"Very well, you have bested the ghost zone's greatest hunter but only for now." Danny's ectoblast destroyed the other arm and poisonous green eyes focused on his head. This was not the sort of focus Skulker was used to seeing from the normally wise-cracking halfa. The look in his eyes was akin to a maddened cape buffalo whose herd had been threatened, filled with unstoppable, protective rage. All that wrath focused wholly on the hunter.

"I surrender!" Skulker screamed frantically. An ectoplasmic sphere of flickering green flame loomed before his bulging eyes.

A tiny blob shot away from the battlefield and into the hazy darkness, ejected from his body suit just in time. Below the real Skulker's feet, the ghost-child's ecto-blast slammed into the suit's head at point-blank range. When the debris cleared nothing remained atop the shoulders. The headless robot crashed into the unforgiving asphalt of the alleyway's maw, sprawled like a corpse and Skulker shuddered as though someone had walked over his grave. Then the halfa turned that terrible, deadly glare upward.

Had the ghostly hunter still been alive, that solid, unbroken venomous-green gaze would have slain him as surely as the Basilisk's gaze of legend. When the Fenton thermos's characteristic blue-white beam engulfed his vision and then him, Skulker actually relaxed for once. He hadn't thought the ghost child would be of a presence of mind to grant such mercy.

"Got him," Tucker said, capping the thermos. "Dude, it's okay, I think we got them all." Sam had just finished sucking in the last mammoth.

"Are you okay," asked Danny, eyes on Tucker's throat wound.

"Oh, is that what all that was about? It's fine, just a scratch like I said. Anyway I got Skulker and between the three of us we got all his escaped prey. Looks like we're finished here."

"We should release the escaped ones back into the ghost zone," said Sam. "It wasn't like they were doing anything wrong, just trying to get away from Skulker. Keeping _him_ in there for a while wouldn't be a bad idea though." Sam glared darkly at Tucker's thermos. "Just to make certain he can't hunt down all these ghosts again."

"Yeah," Danny said harshly, eyeing the thermos in Tucker's hand. "Good idea. Sam I think you need to stitch this up since Tucker can't do it himself right now."

"It's just a flesh wound," Tucker teased with a British accent.

"Hardy har black knight. I remember a few months ago when you got a scrape like that," Sam said a little too lightly. "You freaked like Paulina when she was shoved face-first down that mud-hill."

"It was blood…" Tucker trailed off.

"And that isn't?" Danny said ironically. "Sam, where's the med-kit?"

"Tucker has it in his scooter. You know, you should learn a thing or two about medical stuff too, just in case."

"Yeah, I suppose. Wouldn't want to have to rely on my medical skills right now."

"Tucker the medical expert, who is right here, also says this is not an alleyway-worthy emergency. I promise to hold off on bleeding to death until we get home," Tucker joked.

Danny chuckled weakly, "Good to hear Tuck."

Sam shot him a 'not funny' glance. Tucker cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'll be glad to teach anyone the fine art of thread and needle anywhere other than a dark, dirty alley."

"Fine, Sam is your house clear? You said something about your folks going to that country club party."

"Not now, it's well past midnight. My early bird parents are probably fast asleep…but my grandma might not be, she went to that poker night and could come back any moment. With our luck she'd come back the same time we did."

"Yeah and she barely bought our last excuse. Okay, we'll head over to my house. My parents locked themselves in the observatory with a new invention just before I left. We can bandage that in my room before I drop everyone off."

Tucker nodded, "Sounds like a plan to me, but let's hurry it up. We have that big gym event to train for in the morning, right?"

"Later this morning. The presidential fitness test," Sam added.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Danny grumbled good-naturedly. He picked both of them and hauled the scooter awkwardly on his back before flying to Fentonworks. "That is going to suck all kinds of hell."

Tbc…

A/N: Inspired by Bluemoonalto's "Living Larger" and Firefury's episode re-write challenge I decided to tackle Micro-Management. Hardly my least-favorite episode, but I like to think Micro-Management had potential for some interesting character development. So this story is what could have been and what I wanted to see. Hopefully my re-write is at least a little better than the original. It also ties very subtly in with my other story, "Heroic Build," and takes place just before chapter 3: Gain.

Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

Screaming muscles spasming, arms trembling, Danny strained heroically against iron, his bloodless fingers clamped onto the beam like a vice. With herculean effort, the superhero managed to bring his chin over the bar by sheer force of will. Barely. He hung suspended another second, quaking like an tremor had struck, before pathetically scrawny human limbs gave out and his jaws clacked together as they slammed into the bar. Danny's head snapped back as his body weight dropped like a stone until he was hanging by stringy, shaky arms, panting.

"That was the most pathetic effort I have ever seen!" Bellowed Tetslaff, trying to fry him with her stare. "You couldn't manage a proper chin-up if your life depended on it! Twenty more laps around the gym and then do it again and I'd better see some real _effort_."

Having received actual looks that could kill (courtesy of Vlad), Danny was unimpressed with the gym teacher's stare and merely picked himself up, trying to stretch some life back into his limbs. Hauling multiple tons of semi-truck away from death strained even his ghostly strength to the limits. His whole upper body felt like someone had shoved half a dozen bars of molten lead in place of his muscles. Even jogging laps at the slowest pace he could get away with aggravated his sore arms.

Out of the corner of his eye Danny saw Valerie, like an Amazon of legend, chocolate skin gleaming from effort…

…firing a spear of rejection straight into his heart. The Red Huntress, without a single weapon, had dealt her most devastating blow to her worst enemy—in order to go out and hunt said worst enemy. Feeling all the energy choked from him; Danny turned away and resolutely did not look in…her direction.

Nearby Tucker hadn't even managed to reach the bar with his chin, though he obviously gave it his damnest. From beneath the high collar of his modified gym shirt, Danny could see the topmost of Sam's slightly cruder stitches struggle to hold straining flesh together. Suddenly the pain must have become too much. Tucker's eyes snapped wide and all the strength rushed out of his body as he collapsed, dangling from his arms for a second before falling to the ground. Tetslaff rounded on him. "Now _that_ was the most pathetic effort I have ever seen! Join Fenton, Foley!"

Trembling, Tucker stood up and obeyed in silence. He couldn't plead for leniency without showing off his hidden wound and explaining how he got it, which was the last thing he wanted to confess. The techno-geek easily caught up with Danny's sluggish pace. "Dude, you okay?" he asked.

"I should be asking you that. Your stitches looked like they were about to pop," Danny replied softly.

Tucker tried to shift his collar slightly higher, but he hadn't sewed on enough fabric to cover that last stubborn stitch. "You're the one who fights ghosts all the time, figured you could do a few more pull-ups, especially since you don't have any injuries this time. I'm the one who spends all my time playing video games and—"

"—And fighting ghosts too. I'm just tired Tucker. The second I got to sleep there was a car wreck and…well it was a long night."

"You should have called us."

"No time. Besides you could use the rest." Danny eyed the inconspicuous bulge of a bandage beneath the altered collar. "Tuck, if that knife had been even half an inch closer…"

"I'd have gone ghost," Tucker joked.

"Yeah," Danny said, as serious as the grave. "You would have." Danny had been almost grateful for the screech of tires snapping him out of nightmares of knives, blood and a too-pale face beneath cracked glasses. Half an inch closer…

Despite being packed with sweaty teens, the gym suddenly felt far too cold.

"Dude cheer up, it's not your fault. Anyway you put yourself in danger all the time." More seriously he added, "Hell, you think it was easy watching you play hero flying away to fight _Pariah Dark_?" He stumbled to a halt. "I thought I'd lost my best friend. I thought you had _died_ in there," he added brokenly.

"Move it Foley!"

Glaring at the gym teacher, Tucker continued jogging until they were neck and neck for the world's slowest race. "I…I'm sorry," Danny whispered. The words seemed pitiful compared to the agonizing certainty Tucker must have felt. To lose your best friend. He didn't think _he_ could handle that.

In an alternate timeline, he hadn't.

"We would have been royally screwed if you haven't," Tucker admitted.

"Bad pun." Danny smiled softly.

Tucker continued in a softer voice, "It's just, we risk ourselves and that's our new normal now. Like you said after Walker's invasion if we don't who will."

"But I meant me. I have the superpowers. Something could rip off my arm and eat it and it'll probably grow back! But you...you're…" Danny waved a hand in the general direction of Tucker, trying to think of a nicer word before biting the bullet and speaking the harsh truth. "Fragile."

"You're both fragile!" Testlaff bellowed, making their hearts freeze. How much had she overheard? Damn they needed to be more careful! Anyone who suddenly figured it out could easily let their neighborhood unfriendly ghost hunters know and then it was bye-bye school, hello lab. "And it stops now. If you two don't have the motivation to beat yourselves into shape, someone else needs to beat it into you. Better students." For a moment her eyes landed on Valerie Gray and Danny felt his heart die all over again. Hastily he averted his gaze again. If Testlaff ordered Valerie to train him…that would be a dozen kinds of ironic hell right there.

Then again, maybe somehow they could work things out, if they could just talk it over. If he could reveal that he knew her secret. If he revealed his secret. If she blasted him into all eternity…yeah right. Danny slumped a little further than exhaustion alone warranted.

"Baxter. Manson." Football player and activist looked up from their cardio and weight training respectively. "You're handling these two geeks. Get them into shape! Baxter you take Fenton. Manson with Foley. If you don't pass the Physical Fitness Test I will find a way to hold you both back and make gym class your personal ninth circle of hell." Tetslaff glared at Danny and Tucker. "We clear."

"As a nightmare," Danny snarked. He received another glower from the gym teacher. "Get going!" She snapped before turning her back on them. Letting out a sigh of relief he looked at the bully. Right now Dash Baxter was a thousand times better than Valerie as a trainer.

How fucked up was his life?

Dash grinned openly at Danny, smacking a fist into the palm of his hand. "Don't worry Mrs. Tetslaff, I'll train Fenton real good."

"And I'll train Tucker real well," Sam added with a look far more foreboding than Dash could ever hope to make.

The boys exchanged empathetic glances, each certain the other had gotten the short, burnt, charred end of the stick.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Hopefully this chapter lived up to your expectations. As to why I made Tucker the medic, well he does have that A in sewing class, which a few other people point out. For me there's also a delicious internal conflict between one of his worst fears and one of his friends needing him to save their lives.


	3. Chapter 3

Danny rushed downstairs for his first workout, passing the dining room table conquered by ecto-weaponry parts.

"Danno! Look at this, the new Fenton Crammer; it shrinks a ghost down to harmless size." Well shrinking didn't sound so bad. "And strips all its powers away!"

Of course.

His father hefted a completed Fenton bazooka type gun, a sight more worrying than knowing Dash was going to be here any minute to kick his ass in The Name of Training. Having his ass kicked in The Name of Training had been useful, especially in the early days when his powers acted up. While good and useful things could come from his father's inventions—see Fenton Thermos—Danny put money on 'horrific catastrophe.'

"Great dad, but why call it a crammer?"

"Can't have the ghosts knowing exactly what our weapons do just from the names," his father explained. "Hey, why don't you come over and help me test this baby out?"

Ding-dong.

For a moment Danny stood motionless with indecision, trapped between two potential hells. The bell heralded the arrival of his bully; his dad wanted him to test out something that might, at best, work exactly as advertized. Two things he dreaded; a way to put one off. Rock and hard place; which to choose.

"I've been trying to get this baby to rip a ghost apart molecule by molecule with one shot. Now that would save some time."

Decision made. "That sounds great dad but I need to train with Dash for gym. See you later!" Danny all but flung himself out the door—

—And smacked straight into Dash, who grinned at him like a serial killer discovering new neighbors moving in.

"Well Fenturd it looks like you're lacking a bit of incentive to get into shape," Dash said.

Danny picked himself up, biting back a comment about having plenty of motivation; it was the needed time that escaped him.

"Run." And the bully tackled Danny, who managed to leap off his staircase just in time and hit the ground sprinting.

As he ran top-speed, Danny mind did the same; the backyard was a jungle of trashed ghost hunting tech overgrown by every invasive weed in Amity. Familiar to him from countless games of hide and seek with Sam and Tucker—he felt the tiniest pang of longing for those bygone, carefree days—but unfamiliar to his unwitting opponent. Even without ghost powers, losing Dash for the rest of the day would be no problem.

A shiver wracked his lungs, slipping up his throat; Danny wasted no time leaping behind the first bush he found to activate the transformation. Turning invisible just as icy breath escaped his lips, Danny narrowly avoided Dash, who sprinted into the backyard.

"Where did you go Fenturd? Come out. Hiding isn't exercise. Tetslaff will keep you in her class until you're sixty at this rate!"

"What unsuitable prey, standing out in the open bellowing as though you wanted to die." A ghost appeared, enormous and muscular, glaring at Dash. "Luckily for you human, you shall have the honor of being my bait."

"Being bait is for punies! I don't do puny!"

"Leave him alone!" Phantom appeared out of nowhere, protecting Dash with an ecto-shield and shooting an ecto-blast at Skulker's center mass. "How the hell did you get out?"

The hunter-ghost dodged, though not completely. "My suit has some upgraded features, including the ability to home in on my real body—no matter where it may be."

"Always depending on your suit huh, what about your natural abilities?"

Skulker bared his teeth, "And what would you do without—"

"GHOSTS!" Jack bellowed, aiming a very familiar weapon at them. Danny reacted on instinct born of hundreds of fights, diving for the ground before his brain finished processing power-sapping shrink-ray plus thirty feet above ground equaled problem. Skulker sneered at the incompetent hunter targeting them and had no time to do anything else. Dash decided flight was better part of standing around to get shot, but ran the wrong way and got caught up in the beam as well.

Perspective expanded as his whole world grew. Three feet from the ground became three hundred, then three thousand, his backyard inflating to a solar system. Danny was stupidly grateful his superpower-causing accident hadn't included shrinking powers. The shift was heart-stopping like those 'sudden drop' carnival rides, but with the added horror of happening in every direction at once and nothing to hold a person in place. Suddenly realizing blades of grass had become a real obstacle was even more sickening, the world was dangerous enough normal sized.

Worse, Phantom could feel his ghost core's energy being peeled away even as he slowed his fall to a gentle thump on the ground. Already he was weak, weaker than he has been in months and even without using his powers or being shot again the weapon drained them. Figured when Dash was around his dad's invention would work. Between towering trees of grass, the Ops center loomed like the peak of Mount Everest. Its dizzying height alone enough to make every muscle and limb weary just imagining the climb. Danny didn't want to think about what would happen if he couldn't reverse this change in time; that gun was the only key to bringing his powers back.

A high pitched scream attracted his attention.

"I'm puny! I'm not supposed to be puny!"

Phantom leapt into the air on instinct, but found himself wobbling the instant his feet left the ground like he had the very first time he jumped off Tucker's roof. Remembering those early days, he flew low and slower, the drain of using flight nearly as bad as his ghostly wail. He hadn't been this weak since before the Lunch Lady, long before he'd really become Danny Phantom.

Dash came stumbling around a twig the size of a fallen tree, screaming at the top of his lungs and scrambling away from the ominously twitching grass. A jet black leg appeared, followed by another, bringing forth an arachnid head all the more hideous for its size: all the little details were vividly displayed. More legs brought forth the iconic red hourglass of the monstrous spider. Even for a human the black widow could inflict horrible agony or worse. On a human shrunk to the size of an ant, the stab wound from a fang alone would be fatal, never mind the venom.

Dash would be dead meat if bitten and the black widow's fangs were bared with hunger.

Phantom switched direction, swooping downward instead of flying straight, one leg extended. As tiny as he was, the momentum of boot hitting eye snapped the monstrous head away. Deadly fangs missed the football player by millimeters.

The kick was not enough to kill the spider, though the black widow took a moment to rise again. But rise it did and turned on Phantom with more fury than any ghostly enemy, lethal fangs dripping with venom. Legs lashed like swords, one barbed limb tearing through his logo and the flesh beneath despite his dodge. On the ground, knee-level with the spider, the superhero struck with a roundhouse kick to the nearest joint, sending her stumbling off balance as one joint cracked and collapsed. But the black widow found her feet again with seven remaining legs to right her.

His powers still draining away, Phantom could barely gather enough energy for an ecto-blast. The ball of glowing green energy was dimmer than the last glimmer of the night's faintest star. The impact did not drill a hole through the spider's head like he wanted; only blinded the black widow and seared fragile eye membrane. This time though, the monster reeled away like a rearing horse.

"Phantom!" Dash looked torn between fainting from relief and fainting from fanboyness. "You're puny too!" Suddenly he slapped his hands over his mouth as though he just blasphemed. "Sorry, I mean you're awesome. Well it's not awesome that we're shrunk but—"

"No time!" Phantom tried ignoring the chest wound—that was a lot of ectoplasm leaking out—grabbed Dash's arm and tugged him away from the rising black widow. "Hurry, my ectoblast won't stop that thing for long."

"R-right." Dash actually stuttered, never-mind that he had apologized for an insult, and an accidental insult at that. Phantom liked this new attitude of Dash's a lot better. "Um…would you sign my skull? I mean my shirt! I mean—"

Maybe not.

"Later," Phantom said, scooping up Dash and flying them to the house. "We have to get that weapon d-Dr. Fenton hit us with and reverse the effect or we're ant-men forever!" Phantom didn't even want to think about what would happen if the weapon couldn't reverse its own effects. "Did anyone else get caught in that blast?"

"Permanent? I can't be puny forever? You're gonna fix us! You're a superhero."

"Was anyone else out here?"

" I—I maybe Fentonio got hit." Dash gave a panicky laugh, "But he's already puny so it shouldn't affect him much."

"Or he's not puny and could step on us," Phantom said.

Dash paled satisfyingly. "But we're flying," he said in a small voice.

Suddenly the halfa's spectral tail transformed back into legs and his flight began wobbling as the drain on his core and added weight of another human became too much. Biting back a curse, Phantom turned for the nearest thing, a tall blade of grass. As slow as he was moving, they still crashed into the wide blade faster than any human could sprint. To their size, the stalk was a mighty oak and they landed right in the middle of it.

Only for the blade to bend and bounce like a trampoline, both teens clinging desperately to it. "Woah!" Dash wobbled and then turned to Phantom who was panting harshly. "Um…"

Something about the height of the grass blade sent a ping of warning to Phantom's instincts. Tall grass…the tallest stalk gets cut first. A familiar rumble cinched it. "We need to leave, that's a lawn mower!"

They slid to the ground and sprinted, dodging shoots of grass like tree-trunks of a vast wilderness. Dash hesitantly spoke up, "Um…Phantom? Oh SHIT!"

The lawnmower was coming right at them, an inescapable behemoth of whirling blades and tires that stretched miles across compared to their puny forms. Had Danny been able to reach his top flight speed he could've flown over the towering mammoth, but now they were too small and too slow to avoid the massive green machine. Jumping over what towered like a skyscraper wasn't an option.

"Down," Phantom tugged them both to the center of the lawnmower, hoped Jazz wouldn't turn from her path, and forced Dash flat on the ground. "Whatever you do, don't lift your head." He warned, lying prone beside the bully. "You might not think so well after."

Blades and wheels drew closer and closer until the sound ceased to be ear-splitting and became full-body splitting. Phantom lay in the trembling dirt, hands covering his ears, praying his gamble would pay off, that they were low enough, that the mower blades were high enough. Tires passed them on either side, more massive than bulldozers, caging them in until the only way out was through the spinning blades that would chop them both into pieces. Danny readied his intangibility, just in case, but the power fluttered like a dying butterfly in his metaphysical grip.

Blades passed harmlessly overhead, sending a shower of cut grass down to crash inches—or maybe millimeters—above their heads. Through the leaves, the pair saw the sky shrouded in black indented rubber. An earthquake rocked the ground, then another, oddly rhythmic. Jazz tromped closer and closer to her brother and her former mentee.

"Up!" Phantom tried to be heard over the sound of the mower, leaping up and tugging Dash with him. That snapped the bully from his horror but another step from Jazz sent them both tumbling to the ground as though another tremor had struck.

Again they scrambled to their feet to run, but the massive boot was the size of Sin from Final Fantasy Ten, blotting out all light as it descended straight toward them like a tsunami: inevitable and irresistible. They tried flat-out sprinting from beneath it but the boot overshadowed so much, their swiftest speed was nothing compared to how fast that foot fell. Phantom forced his power to course through both of them, blocking out all his pain, straining harder than he ever had at the chin-up bar. "Keep running," he commanded.

Dash was practically pulling him along, as fast as the quarterback was moving. But he wasn't fast enough. Jazz's boot seemed to move in slow motion; Phantom's powers moved in slower motion. Intangibility came harder than during the battle with the Lunch Lady. The ghostly energy almost seemed to die, spread too thin. Dash felt rubber touch his hair.

Suddenly adrenaline flooded Phantom and the familiar tingle of intangibility enveloped them. Black rubber fell harmlessly through them as they stumbled out to the other side. Dash trembled all over so badly he collapsed every time he tried to get up; Phantom forced himself to take deep breaths to regain some semblance of strength. Only his locked knees kept him from falling over. At this rate his powers would fade to nothing before they could reach his front door. He would be dependent only on his human abilities against a thousand threats.

"That was awesome," Dash said giddily, laughing like a loon. "We're alive."

Phantom recognized the 'mental unhinging from near death experience' tone. "Yeah, living is great like that. Come on, let's hurry before someone starts weeding," he commanded. They couldn't afford any kind of mental collapse now. Blushing and stammering apologies, Dash obeyed.

Running those few yards was like running a marathon. Phantom gritted his teeth and tried to take deep, even breaths in order to put off the inevitable stabbing pain in his side but every breath strained the sluggish wound on his chest. It was far smaller than it would have been for a normal human, but it should have fully closed now and his side began prickling within minutes. Beside him Dash didn't seem nearly so weary, or if he was, he was even better at hiding it. The football player's eyes were wide and blank, making the superhero wonder if anyone was home though.

"Um…Phantom…why are we running? You can fly."

"That shrink ray targets ghosts," Danny explained, trying not to sound as out of breath or in pain as he felt. The last thing he needed right now was to act like a weakling and have Dash quit listening to him, or worse, figure out his secret. "It's draining my powers."

"What?" Dash looked horrified, halting.

"Keep moving."

"Ghost Child!" A truly unwelcome voice shouted. "I have you now!"

"He's flying!" Dash shouted.

"He's diving," Phantom corrected, subtly testing his powers. Another ecto-blast would drain him like a puddle in Death Valley. Invisibility or intangibility might be an option, but the struggle to use either power would be fatal in battle. Flying would be a worse idea. For the first time since he started ghost fighting, Danny was forced to rely on skill alone. What he wouldn't have given to have anyone else beside him except Dash, who cowered beneath a fallen blade of grass as Skulker swooped toward them. Even his father would have been more of a help.

And anyone aside from himself protecting Dash. Even Jazz was a better fighter than he was without the powers he depended on.

Family and friends weren't an option though. They had a set of dying superpowers, their natural skill and nothing else. Phantom braced himself on the ground, trying to mimic the martial stance he'd seen his mom do so many times before. Maybe he didn't have so much as a yellow belt in martial arts, but he had months of ghost fights under his belt and had fought Skulker before. He wouldn't let Dash die.

Skulker was a ranged fighter, not a melee one. He slowed.

Phantom carefully eased forward, keeping his arms in front of him like shields, every muscle tensed and ready for the expected missiles. Dash froze, eyes flickering from Skulker to his hero, wanting to be near the latter but frightened of the former.

As usual the ghost fired a blizzard of bombs, but Phantom was ready for the typical move. A leap, empowered by his fading powers, closed the distance. Hitting the ground in a rough roll, head tucked, he got back to his feet right in front of the ghost hunter. Hoping with hand-to-hand he would stand a chance Phantom flung all his strength behind the first punch. Skulker only jerked back a little before grinning wider still.

"Is that all."

Close range combat wasn't going to cut it, not when his opponent was three times Dash's size and made out of metal. Not when his super-strength was all but gone. Phantom retreated as a second burst of missiles shot toward him, forcing him to dodge faster than he thought possible. Swift as angry hornets the missiles tore past him; one slashing at his side. While twisting to avoid another, Phantom felt one strike the leg. Vanishing in the ripped foliage, Phantom hit the ground to evade another burst, this time of knives.

"Ah ha! Finally, I Skulker have downed the elusive Phantom!" He hovered just above his fallen prey barely visible beneath the greenery, grabbed an enormous blade of grass and flung it aside.

Revealing only a shirt as a lure.

Phantom pounced, looping one arm around Skulker's throat in a head lock. The hunter snapped out wrist-knives and thrust the massive blades toward his attacker but the superhero twisted away—nearly. Another line of pain shot across his cheek, slicing to the bone as he undid the catch on the skull, exposing the true ghost. For one deadly instant, Danny envisioned gripping Skulker until ectoplasm oozed out formlessly between his fingers. He tossed the ghost out before he could go through with it.

"Emergency activation!" the tiny Skulker bellowed. The robot's jet-backpack roared to life and Phantom had to let go or be tossed into the sky. Immediately the hunk of metal honed in on Skulker, not so much catching him as smacking right into him and carrying the ghost topsy-turvy over the grass.

Phantom snatched his shirt back from a curious Dash, absently wondering just when he'd been able to detach the top like that. Oh well, it was easier (and less embarrassing) than having to shuck the whole hazmat suit. "Come on, Skulker will be back soon!"

Dash was gaping at Phantom before suddenly finding dirt absolutely fascinating. The half-ghost frowned as he zipped the shirt back up. Why in the world was Dash so bashful when the jock constantly had to change in locker rooms?

"Um…you okay?" Dash finally asked.

"Fine, except for the whole power-draining thing. Come on." Phantom replied shortly, not because he hated Dash at the moment, but because he hadn't the breath for conversation. He desperately tried to keep a reasonable pace with a literally burning side to go along with the usual burning pain. Every step sent a jackhammer of agony through his leg, his bleeding chest strained with every breath, but Phantom powered through it with sheer force of will alone.

Hopefully Sam and Tucker were doing better.


	4. Chapter 4

Hopefully Danny was doing better with Dash.

Tucker pressed one hand against his burning side, trying to suppress the pain with pressure as he desperately struggled for that extra burst of speed to bring him victory. Just a little faster and he could tackle his opponent and seize her hostage. Gritting his teeth, the techno-geek pushed aside the pain and sped up, even as his side screamed like Ember at a rock concert. What had he done to it? But no, can't think about that. Come on, just a little closer. He launched himself into a tackle.

Sam sped up. Tucker kissed race-track dirt.

"Up and at 'em Tuck!"

Those words would haunt Tucker's nightmares. The bowls of hell, in the ninth circle of such fiery realms, would be a technological wasteland echoing that phrase like a prehistoric cave. He did not want to get up. He had been put through several swims, followed by not one but two miles of jogging and now dashes so torturous the real Dash would be better. Tucker didn't want to run another hundred meters. He didn't want to run another hundred inches. An acid factory had opened business on his side and though his lungs pumped like the bellows, he couldn't get enough air in to quench the pain. Laying on the track like a downed dog, one word gasped through cracked lips:

"Mercy."

Sam dangled his precious PDA in front of his face.

Quick as a striking snake, Tucker lunged for it. He paid for it as every muscle simultaneously felt like cold rubber suddenly stretched too far. Oh ow, ow, ow, owowow!

Sam was swifter still, and leapt neatly away from his desperate grab. "Gonna have to move faster than that!" She bolted away and from Tucker's dirt-crushed point of view matched Danny's flight speed. Fear alone for his precious PDA gave him strength to leap after her; though it cost him another shot from the ecto-gun exercise had buried in his side, and finish the dash.

Collapsing to his knees, he begged his best friend, "Come…on! Give it…back now? I've done, huh, every bit…of running that…stupid test…will ever have…five times over!"

"And broken every record for the slowest time. It took you twenty minutes to complete that last mile Tucker. I could do that faster walking!" Sam complained. "My little cousin could do that faster crawling!"

"Not…all of us have easy access…to a home gym and hours to exercise."

"You just need to realize that exercise can be more important than improving the latest PDA or playing video games. I have," Sam snapped.

"Oh come on, who cares about gym, besides Tetslaff?" Tucker grumbled, "It's not like it's really important. Nothing about school really matters. We're not taught how to do our taxes or how to make money or…you know…actually succeed in life. Just bullshit about dead white guys."

"This is important! Being physically fit is vitally important if you want the _chance_ to succeed in life. Now tough it up!" Sam shouted, no longer playful.

Groaning, Tucker got to his feet again, "If I tough it up any more, I'm gonna drop dead."

Sam flinched for a moment before anger took over. "Then be prepared to go ghost. Do everything all over again. Twice as fast. Starting now!"

Hopefully Dash was doing better with Danny.


	5. Chapter 5

"Finally we made it to…huh…Fentera's house," Dash leapt up to grab the last step and did not only a chin-up, but a chest up to scramble over the concrete edge. "Whew! Being puny is harder than football. Can you do that phasy-tingly thing again and slip inside?"

Phantom, without breath to speak, shook his head. Taking a few more gulps of blessed oxygen, he knelt by the crack beneath the door. But even flat on the ground, twisted to the side, his head still couldn't get beneath the door. He tried again, feet first this time, but his chest got stuck part way. Of all the ironies he was too big.

"Not…gonna work. We'd need…another dose of that…shrink ray," Phantom huffed. "You weren't kidding about puny being work."

"Yeah, its amazing Fentgeek is flunking gym." Dash laughed.

Silently scrutinizing the area, the superhero ignored his bully, focusing on a knothole leading into the house not feet from the front door. "There!" It meant yet more running, but it was the closest way in.

Jogging into the massive mouse hole, Phantom was blinded by the sudden plunge into darkness. His boots fell through something like powder snow, but dry and warm. As his eyes adjusted, he found himself knee deep in dust. Dirt buried corners and formed walls and hills; wires gnawed bare of plastic twisted haphazardly through the darkness. Not a crumb of food could be found though; nothing of use. Dash's eyes took a little longer to adjust, but soon he grimaced at the filth. "Ugh, nasty! Doesn't anyone clean around here? This is a dust pan, not a mouse hole. Where's the match-box bed? The thimble chair?"

"You watch too many cartoons. Keep an eye out, at our size cockroaches will be a threat." Phantom searched futilely for anything he could use as a weapon. Every passing moment wore his powers away like a black hole against a star and he couldn't depend on them much longer. At this point he would take a splinter as a makeshift spear but the only splinters would have made better logs for a cabin.

"Cockroaches, eww! Fenturd and his family live like one—Gagh!"

Two enormous ghostly glowing eyes appeared, towering above them from the shadows like a monster's. Dash's yell gave Phantom enough time to dodge a descending foot. Again. He turned and found himself face to…well paw with a mouse. A perfectly ordinary, non-ghostly house mouse.

A mouse Skulker was riding.

As tiny as they were, the rodent was Godzilla. Even with his powers, Phantom would have had a difficult time fighting such a monster. Nearly drained, he had only one shot at this.

"Phantom!" Dash screamed again in pure terror as the mouse lunged toward his hero. Enormous incisors chopped at Phantom like a pair of guillotines but before dirty enamel could touch him, the superhero vanished. Suddenly the mouse's eyes glowed brighter, the only warning anyone got until the creature tossed Skulker into the wall. The hunter ghost staggered to the side as massive jaws snapped millimeters from his head, then collapsed.

"Woah!"

Phantom appeared in a flash of light, falling to hands and knees, mouth open and panting like a dog pushed past exhaustion. A second brilliant light blinded onlookers as a pair of white rings engulfed the fallen superhero.

"Damn it!" he cried. Heedless of the curse, the rings swept over his form before he could stop them. When they vanished, they took his gloves, transformed his suit. The hero gaped at bare hands before raising eyes—please not blue eyes—to a gaping Dash. What to say? How to explain? With a nervous hand he accidentally knocked hair into his face.

White hair.

He nearly fainted with relief. A closer look revealed the gloves were off but these new clothes looked similar to his usual hazmat. White boots still covered his feet, not sneakers. He was still in ghost form.

"What was that?" Dash asked.

"That…that's what happens when I lose too much power. That overshadowing took a lot out of me." Phantom tried keeping superhero confidence through that confession, getting his mind off his secret and back on saving their lives. Without the blinding light, he could barely see Skulker crumpled to the side of the wall, or maybe it was just the suit and the ghost was gone. Tracks littered the dust, massive and rodent-shaped.

But where was the mouse?

Floorboards trembled as the giant creature charged from the shadows, bearing down on them. The superhero reacted first, but the quarterback was only half a second slower to leap away as the giant beast ran past. It spun around on one paw, looking momentarily confused, as though unable to comprehend food that moved. Then, with teeth bared, it lowered a head the size of the Ghost Assault Vehicle toward the closest teen.

"I'm not that cheesy!" Phantom smashed a fist straight into its nose.

The nose, experience taught him, was a delicate place both for living creatures and ghosts and the mouse was no different. Despite the massive size difference the rodent felt the strike and jerked its head back, now looking more confused than ever.

"That's right, back off!" Dash shouted.

Because mice aren't generally predators and cheese doesn't usually hit back the mouse obeyed, fleeing to search for food that couldn't club it over the nose.

"Over here." Phantom called. "Skulker's suit might have something useful."

"Why can that Skull-ghost fly? Why isn't it losing its powers?" Dash complained.

Phantom headed for the abandoned armor. "Skulker's suit isn't a part of him, and if it's not a ghostly artifact it might not be affected by Dr. Fenton's weapon. Hah!" He unsheathed Skulker's favorite hunting knife. Though miniaturized, the hunter was still three times Phantom's size so the blade was more like a small sword on his frame. "I don't suppose you know how to use any weapons?" He didn't know much himself, but he'd swung a sword before.

"Um…not really," said Dash.

"Here, let's pry off some of these armor plates, they'll be useful as shields," said Phantom.

"Right."

For a moment both were engrossed in taking off the massive shoulder plates Skulker preferred with only a sword-sized knife as a tool.

"Dash, I can't feel any of my powers," Phantom finally admitted. His gaze dropped to their makeshift shields for a second before looking Dash straight in the eye. "I'm not certain I have the strength to get to that ghost hunting weapon alone. I need your help."

"Mine?"

"What were you doing here when we got shrunk?"

"Uh…getting Fentino in shape because he's a wimpy, wh—"

Danny cleared his throat; stopping the tirade of insults. "So, like gym partners in a way?"

"Yeah," said Dash.

"Well, will you be my gym partner?" Phantom held out his ungloved hand.

Dash squealed like a little girl—what Danny wouldn't have done to record that sound for endless future blackmail—and engulfed the offered hand with both of his. The jock shook hands so vigorously Phantom nearly lost his. "This is gonna be so cool."

Suddenly the half-ghost slipped his shield on and tugged his hand free. "I doubt that. The spider stalking us, it's venomous." He nodded to the massive arachnid creeping from the shadows.

"How do you know that's venomous? It's brown, not black."

"Because Murphy's law says so." Using his shield, Phantom bashed the spider's descending head in all eight eyes. With metal blinding it, he reversed his sword-grip and slammed the blade into the animal's head.

"Well that was easy," Dash said.

Murphy's law took offense to Dash's statement. More spiders appeared, no longer sneaking but charging like the world's creepiest phalanx. Phantom yanked his sword free, stepped in front of the football player and hoped what little sword fighting he knew got them out alive.


	6. Chapter 6

"This…huh…is cruel and unusual punishment. Illegal by…Geneva Convention…or-or something," Tucker complained.

His legs had gone completely, blessedly numb sometime after the fifth mile, the fifth race—the fifth something. The techno-geek couldn't quite remember. Exercise was clearly affecting his brain and not for the better. Now, half-way through the demands of the devil, his arms were on the death march to numbness: which meant all the chin-ups, pull-ups and every other kind of ups pushed him atop the summit of agony.

"Pushups!" The mistress of pain called out. "You're gonna kiss the ground Tucker."

"Gonna…punch…the…ground."

"With your face if you don't hold yourself right. Back straight. On your toes, not your knees. I want military-style pushups."

"Damn it! This is not the military Sam."

"Might as well be," Sam commented darkly. "In fact military is exactly the way to go on this. Assume the position." She demonstrated the hellish pose next to him.

Tucker slowly assumed the position; spine straight, making his stomach tremble with dread, on his toes to force all body weight onto burning arms, hands pressing into weights so tightly they sank into the track. Slowly he lowered himself down on the strength of his arms alone, quickly gave the ground a smooch, and pushed back up.

Or tried to.

His back might as well have been pushing against a car. Tucker really did try. He wasn't entirely oblivious to just how driven Sam was and she usually only got like this when some moral cause got her shit up. But there were limits to friendship and his were two inches off the ground. His lips hovered over dirt, triceps and biceps straining just to keep him there.

"Use your chest. The pectorals are larger and stronger." Sam was still demonstrating the correct way to do a pushup at a pace that made his muscles wince just thinking about it. His puny chest muscles managed to push him half an inch before giving twin death-gasps. His body weight was too much. The strength of gravity yanked down.

His face punched the ground.

"Up!"

"Arms…dead."

"You're gonna be dead if you don't move your ass! Reanimate them," Sam said seriously. Still doing pushups.

"Ugh!"

"Come on Tucker, imagine there's a ghost coming after you and push up!"

"There. Isn't. Any. Spook. Except. You." Tucker gasped out.

Sam didn't laugh, "That doesn't mean there's not gonna be. We fight ghosts all the time; you need to learn this. Now heave it up!"

"Don't fight ghosts…with push-ups." Tucker's trembling chest got him back into the position before finally giving out. He collapsed again. "Okay, I give. I give. I'm done."

Sam leapt up. "No you aren't, we haven't even gotten half way through the physical fitness test."

Rolling over so he could breathe more easily, Tucker gasped. "It's…just one…school test. Huh…shit Sam it's just a stupid test and," he waved a lazy hand at her, "…acting like…zombie apocalypse…is scheduled tomorrow."

Sam glared at him, eyes shining so brightly as though—as though she was about to _cry_. Eyelids snapped shut, hands curled into fists, jaw stiffened, she forced the burn of sorrow away. Opening her eyes and blinking them, she was relieved to find no tears. Tucker sat up, staring at her incredulously.

"It's not like school's real," he said gently. "It's always been a fake. Hell, three days ago you did a presentation on how brainwashing school really is. Come on Sam, why do you care so much about this BS? You've _never_ cared this much about class."

"It's not about school! It's about physical fitness. It's about keeping in shape Tucker. Your health! Your life!"

"I won't die—"

"You almost did!" Sam jabbed a finger at his bandaged neck. "Half an inch more and all the powers in the world wouldn't have saved you. Half an inch more and Danny at his fastest speed wouldn't have gotten you to the hospital in time. Half an inch more and I'd be staring at the _grave_ of my best friend!" Her face was an inch from his, her teeth bared like a wolf's but her eyes shone.

"School might not be real but this is. What we do. It's real Tucker. It's real—"

"—And I don't want you to _die_."


	7. Chapter 7

Eyes burst like ectopuses, heads stiffened—gaping jaws wide and rigid—as steel thrust through them. Legs fell away, bodies crumpled, joints shattered beneath white boots; enormous spider bodies crashed, missing him by a hair's breadth. Phantom fought like a demon with every limb and weapon he had. Yet for every spider killed, another replaced it.

Spider fangs snapped shut like traps, their legs plunged toward him like spears, barbs and hooks slashed his flesh. He fought to stay in front of Dash, to shield and protect the cowering other who obviously had never been in this kind of fight.

Curled in a ball, shield held like an umbrella against a tornado, Dash was paralyzed with life-threatening terror—until more spiders flanked them.

His shield fell from nerveless fingers.

Dash bolted.

"No! Don't run you idiot!" Phantom bellowed, turning to grab the jock before he could do something stupid.

Too late. Spiders pounced like tigers on the fleeing prey. Phantom broke away from one spider, ignoring a stab at his back and carved another's head clean off. He charged the spiders tearing at Dash with shield held in front and sword pointed like a rhino's horn. The closest spider died instantly.

"Dash get behind me!"

"They're behind us!"

Kicking a leg shattered the closest spider's exoskeleton and Phantom spun around to see spiders crawling toward Dash. Spiders rushed to take the place of the fallen on his side. They were surrounded.

"Stay right behind me and get ready to run. We need to punch our way through." Spiders encircled them, but the arachnid ring wasn't all a dozen deep; in some places a single spider stood between them and escape. Scanning the advancing predators, Phantom found the weakest.

"This way!" Phantom pointed his sword at the spider he picked out as others rushed. Shield out, body low, sword readied, the superhero charged; Dash nearly hitting his heels from behind as dozens of spiders sprang as one.

This Brown Recluse loomed enormously, even larger than most but the eyes were milky with age and its steps faltered due to missing two legs. It hesitated at their rush. Phantom slashed at one leg, running right beneath the body as the severed limb fell away, Dash practically piggybacking on him.

Another slash, another leg fell away and both boys shot out from beneath the ancient arachnid as it crashed to the ground. Phantom headed straight for the corner behind it.

"There's no way out!" Dash wailed, staring between forbidding walls trapping them. Were they going to fight their way out? But how? He was used to nerds and geeks, not creatures towering over his head!

"There's one way. Get behind me. Stay behind me. Keep your shield up and don't run unless I stop fighting," Phantom commanded.

The jock jerked his head up and down, clutching at his bloody leg. Could he even run anymore? Phantom stood in front of him, sword and shield drenched in spider guts, blood running from his wounds as the horde of monsters closed in.

Never had Phantom fought like this. Legs and fangs tore at him, whole bodies several times his size hit him. The battle was worse than a hundred ghost fights shoved into a few minutes. Even that one time his father had been testing (i.e. playing with) the new security lock on the portal, he hadn't fought so many. And in so little time.

Minutes ground to a halt as though Clockwork himself were influencing this fight. A sword thrust into the bulbous eyes of one spider finished it. A pair of legs struck at him. He slammed the shield's edge into the fangs of another. The body smashed into him. A kick broke the leg of a third in as many seconds. Instantly they were replaced by more hungry fangs snapping at his throat, more alien eyes locked on him—were they out of juicy flies?—more massive legs thrusting toward his chest.

Phantom fought them all until they were only corpses.

Blood, spider and human, flowed into rivers through the battle. Adrenaline surged like bloodlust as they danced the dance of death. But time took its terrible toll. Now it took two or three strikes to kill a single spider. Now every move kept half a dozen wounds from closing. Piles of corpses turned into a mountain the spiders had to crawl over or push aside just to reach them but Phantom barely killed them in time.

They kept coming.

Once, Phantom fell, leg collapsing beneath him, blood welling from a lucky strike. Adrenaline alone wasn't enough to keep him going. A spider pounced, trapping his kneeling body between its legs, fangs open wide to snap shut like a steel vice.

No! he was not going to die here. Not like this. With strength born of fear the ghost hero ripped his arm free and slammed his sword into the descending mouth. Fangs snapped shut so close they tore through his suit. With a desperate swing, he smashed the shield on one fang, then the other before getting to his feet. A couple of tugs ripped the sword free and he stabbed the still twitching spider once, twice, thrice.

Finally it stopped moving.

So did Phantom.

"Woah!" Dash looked over the spiders. To his eyes there were hundreds, all unmoving, gashes parting monstrous flesh, limbs hacked off, fangs and heads and eyes crushed into a murky, sludgy mess. And among all that gore was Phantom, holding his sword and shield like Conan the Barbarian.

"That was awesome! Um…do we run now?"

Phantom didn't want to run, didn't want to move. Leaning against his sword was the only way to keep from toppling over completely and joining the lucky spiders. But no, he couldn't rest. Someone still needed him, even if that someone was Dash.

But…just a few minutes.

"Phantom?"

Feeling like his eyes were cemented shut, Phantom opened them. Feeling like he had walked through a salt-water and lemon-juice waterfall, Phantom lifted his head. Feeling like every joint had been turned to iron, drenched in a rainstorm and left to dry in the desert, Phantom slowly got to his feet. The Fenton Crammer. His powers. He didn't have much time.

Dash might have even less.

"Right…let's go."

By the time they made it to the vine Phantom didn't feel quite so rusty, but the drain on his ghost core was so bad he couldn't even feel the leeching effect. His powers felt numb. Without ectoplasm bolstering his strength, even the short knife/sword felt like a lead brick. Without adrenaline surging through his veins every step tugged at dozens of wounds, making them flare like rockets. He dragged the blade along the ground, unable to muster the strength to lift it as his blood joined the gore.

"Up here," Phantom said, pressing one hand onto the vine. "How are those cuts?"

"They're fine…okay," Dash insisted.

"Then I hate to say this, but let's climb."

The climb was hell—seventh circle at least. The highest mountain, the steepest cliff he'd ever seen couldn't have been this hard of a climb. Phantom's whole body burned star-plasma hot. Climbing after the worst battle made the agony burn a thousand times more painfully in every wound: chest, legs, sides, arms.

Even his neck burned, and when he took his hand away from it, the tanned skin was stained red.

Hope strained more than any muscle though. He couldn't feel his powers. Did he have the strength left to save himself? Could Dash alone save them both? Or would the Fenton Crammer have no effect, if they could even reach it, and condemn them to a puny life until death?

Which, as things were going, wouldn't be too long.

"Pull yourself up with your whole body. It's more efficient," Dash demonstrated. "Takes some pressure off your arms."

"Thanks," said Phantom.

His arms didn't need more pressure; they'd been ready to fall off after the battle. A few deeper gashes and they would have fallen off. Gravity pulled as heavily on the sword sheathed in his belt and the shield on his back as death on the soul. Still, that was better than carrying the blood-stained things in his teeth like a pirate.

The braid of vine was one of the Fenton Graveyard of Inventions many colonists and lead to a second story window; Jazz's window. If they could just make it up there, one way or another, they would have help.

Suddenly Phantom's pewter grip faltered and he slid back, muscles twitching and trembling with agony as he tried to stop. No, no, no he had already climbed that inch and was not climbing it again. With a desperate grab he seized one of the leaves and flopped over it like a cooked piece of spaghetti to ride out the waves of pain. It died back down, or else he got used to this new level of suffering.

"Phantom?" Dash called out.

The superhero carefully flexed his arms and relaxed when they didn't tremble wildly. "Fine. Spiders just took…a lot out of me." Balancing himself carefully on the leaf, he leapt onto the vine again. Every muscle felt like sandbags someone poured boiling tar in but increment by increment the pair managed the climb.

"Hah, after that fight give me vine climbing any day," Dash admitted.

Phantom nodded in agreement; compared to battling what must have been a hundred venomous spiders intent on killing both of them, vine-climbing—even bruised and bloody—rocked.

"Amen…to that. Though with my luck…all those spiders will come back as ghosts." Cold sweat beaded on Phantom at that thought. That last spider…it had nearly finished them off.

"Hey, uh Phantom…how long does it take to become, ugh, a ghost?"

"Depends: few days, few weeks, few months. Usually you…don't instantly become a ghost…though I did." He pushed through the memory of so many volts of electricity, so much nerve-searing misery that he'd wanted to die if only for it to end.

Thank goodness his friends hadn't been in there.

"Taking years is also…very unusual." Though Vlad had taken years in the hospital before suddenly being 'declared dead' one night. Soon after he had been revived and the ecto-acne 'cured.' After finding that tidbit of information it hadn't taken a genius to conclude what had happened.

Vlad Masters had become Vlad Plasmius, just as Danny Fenton had become Danny Phantom.

Small mercies, his secret identity had been spared so far. His suit had transformed several more times during the battle—not that he'd noticed at the time—but the clothes hadn't fared any better than himself after the fight. Spider legs and jaws tore it so badly he was baring more than he was wearing. The arm sleeves had been the first casualty so he couldn't tell if the shirt was Phantom's long sleeved or Fenton's t-shirt. The pants were so badly stained with blood that they could have been jeans or part of a hazmat suit and he had no idea which. The dirty hair stuck to his face was still white though.

Completely oblivious to his identity crisis, Dash added. "Don't want a horde of ghostly spiders after us."

The football player was even worse off, despite his bulk. Phantom might have taken the blunt of the attacks and their shields, but the battle had taken its toll on Dash.

"Phantom! This won't stop bleeding." Dash stared at the ragged slices all over his body. "Coach said anything bleeding after ten minutes of pressure needed a hospital and I'm sure it's been ten hours!"

"Here…let's rest a moment and I'll bind it." He was no Tucker, without even Sam's experience, but Phantom still knew wounds inside and out.

"Hands away, don't try a tourniquet." Ripping a piece off what was left of his shirt, Phantom pressed it directly to the wound before gently wrapping another piece to keep the first in place.

"My arm's not gonna fall off? I'm not gonna bleed to death?"

"Trust me, this won't kill you," said the ghostly hero.

Dash shut up. "Right."

By the time all wounds were bandaged Phantom had hardly any shirt left, but Dash looked a little better. They continued climbing, but blood loss and some flesh wounds were as bad for Dash's physical prowess as the Fenton Crammer had been for Phantom's. At least the jock was so wrapped up in his own problems to be oblivious to anyone else's weaknesses.

"It's okay Dash," Phantom reassured. "You didn't get…stabbed by the fangs. If that had happened—"

"Hospital right?" Dash said.

"No. Quick painful death."

"Oh."

"Better than…slow painful death."

After another long length of putting one limb in front of the other, Dash got the courage to ask the question burning in his throat. "So how did you die?"

Phantom stiffened in mid-climb, jaw clenched against the memory—cold-hot agony like a star's searing death tore through him as ectoplasm split the world apart—and Dash immediately regretted the question. "I didn't mean—"

"Don't…" Phantom let out a deep breath, " _Ask_ a ghost that. Please."

"Okay."

Dragging himself up, Danny reached a hand down and helped Dash onto the window sill. "In… here," he said shortly.

Dash curled into a ball and trying not to paw at his red-stained bandages. "I hate being puny! God we're never gonna make it up to the shrinker-thing."

"Yes…we will," Danny said with empty confidence. "We will," he added to make himself believe. Unfortunately his sister wasn't there to help them like he'd hoped but…"Hah! Here we are!"

"My Little Pony?" Dash stared at the tiny horse toys. "Can I have Rainbow Dash?"

"Is that what they are?" Phantom asked, mock innocently. When Dash blushed and stuttered he hid a smirk for a moment before giving Dash a small smile. "Alright, which one is Rainbow Dash? This one?" He pushed up a pony with Technicolor mane.

"Yeah," said Dash. "So…um…how're those going to help anyway?"

"Because we need a ride to the ops center." Phantom pointed out the window, to the massive, stinger-armed insects flying around, attracted to some flowers his sister had set out. Dash paled.

"They're huge."

"No, we're just little. Welcome to the world of puny." He heaved a pair of saddles on his shoulders. His shoulders did not appreciate that.

"Puny sucks ass."

A sigh. "I guess we can…rest here…a little while," Phantom said. Dash collapsed.

The no-longer-so-super hero didn't admit how badly he needed rest. In his short but very eventful career as a superhero he'd had to push himself hellishly hard, but nothing like this. Ironically what should have been a comedic 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids' adventure was turning into a contender for top five harshest days. He collapsed too, but Dash was nearly unconscious and didn't notice yet another moment of weakness. As they both relaxed in the relative safety of Jazz's window a particularly unwelcome voice spoke.

"There you two are."

Caught flat-footed and exhausted, Dash couldn't raise his shield in time to block the flying knives headed straight for his throat.

Phantom was suddenly there, as though he'd teleported to shield Dash. Blades slammed against glowing ectoplasm. The superhero's green eyes were wide with more than exhaustion, his hands trembling like Dash's whole body.

The desperate rescue had taken everything Phantom had and then some. He collapsed instantly, light dimly appearing around his waist. "No!" The word was choked out from behind gritted teeth. A bare hand clutched instinctively at his chest as though he was having a heart attack. Feeble light flared to lightning crackling around his torso, wavering only slightly before spreading up the halfa's body.

"Phantom! What's happening?" Dash stared fearfully.

Even Skulker backed away from the unfamiliar surge of electricity, "Welp?"

"I…" the electricity escaped control and slipped further over his body. With sheer force of will, Phantom latched onto the wild lightning, trying to reverse its course. Dash was still shouting but he didn't dare pay any attention to the words when cursed humanity was being revealed like a muscle exposed by skinning. Lightning leeched every scrap of ectoplasmic power from him on its journey over his body, leaving him raw as an open wound.

Hesitantly the quarterback reached out and touched a coil of crackling power. The new sensation was like someone's hand sliding through him while intangible, but a thousand times more acute. Intangibility always muted touch; this light concentrated all the sensation intangibility took away. If a light socket could feel, this was what it felt when someone stuck their finger in it. Jerking away, he overbalanced and collapsed. Power tore free from his feeble grip; with his concentration broken the rings swept faster over his throat.

"Ahhh!" As they slipped up his face, Danny grabbed for them but it was like trying to hold a chin-up when his arms wanted to fall off: trying, straining…

Failing.

With one last flash the lightning turned white hair to black and vanished.

Facing the ground, black hair hiding his features, Danny stared at his hands—his lighter-colored, non-glowing, human hands. Oh hell, his secret!

His mind buzzed around a thousand excuses and explanations. But how the hell was he supposed to pass himself off as anyone but Danny Fenton? And of all the people to find out it had to be Dash Baxter. Which attitude would his 'gym buddy' take: the hero-worshipping fan or the bullying bastard?

"Phantom?" Dash asked carefully.


	8. Chapter 8

"I know."

The stunned look on Sam's face was almost funny but for once Tucker couldn't bring himself to crack a smile. "How can I not know?" He ran his fingers over the crusted gash on his neck, just shallow enough to scab over by now and trembled as though someone had walked over his grave. Was this how Danny felt? Touching the Lichtenberg scar left behind by the accident, tasting death on his tongue.

His hand fell back to the ground. "Didn't see my life flash before my eyes or anything but I get that we can die. I understand that we can die. I believe we can die."

His eyes fixed on his hand. "Knew that ever since my best friend died."

"Danny didn't—" Sam began.

"My PDA crunched the numbers." The hopeless, deadened look in Tucker's eyes made Sam regret opening her stupid mouth. "That much electricity alone would have killed any living thing on the planet. But…enough electricity can actually act as a defibrillator, stopping the heart, giving it a chance to start again…over and over and over. He might have even died multiple times, heart stuttering, stopping, starting who knows how many times. Sure in the end he made it out, binding the ectoplasm to his molecular structure probably helped but…" Tucker bowed his head. "Yeah, he did die at least for a little while…"

"…I almost died."

Suddenly Tucker's eyes were drilling into her. "But you're the one always going on about beliefs being so important. Don't you believe this is worth dying for?"

Sam had thought about it, had even envisioned herself finally dying by the blade or ecto-blast of some ghost…or some ghost hunter. That fear spurred her sudden exercise-mania. "Yes," she said with all the depth of such thoughts. "But that doesn't mean we have to be so eager for it. You need to be more careful. We'll be…" now she mentally fled from the gaping pit of non-existence Tucker would leave behind in death. "…incomplete, without you."

"Gee, thanks Sam. Nice to know I'm appreciated."

Something in his tone made her turn on him. "Of course you're appreciated! I wouldn't go to half this effort for anyone else and Dash sure as hell isn't going to help Danny like I'm helping you."

"Heh, well in that case I could really use a little less appreciation."

"Stop joking!"

Tucker snapped "I have to joke, or I'm gonna go nuts dwelling on death! I'm not you. I don't love drowning myself in all the dark, tragic, gothic horror. I can't believe in an _ideal_ enough to die for it. All this," he waved a hand at his throat, "I'm doing for you guys."

"You don't have to," Sam whispered.

"Would you stop? Would Danny stop? Damn it, I'm not blind to how bad things are getting: more ghosts, more often and more powerful. We started out with the Lunch Lady and her meat monster, like a damn Saturday morning cartoon. Now we're dealing with…ancient ghost kings and evil future alternate selves—people and monsters who want to _kill_ us and kill everyone else! It hasn't even been a year yet. What are things going to look like in senior year if…"

"—if we even live that long," Sam commented gravely.

"Yeah," Tucker said softly. "Yeah…that's exactly right. Things are getting more serious and Amity Park needs Danny Phantom and maybe I can't give my life for a stranger, but Danny needs us so yes, this is my responsibility."

That shut Sam up for a moment.

"Besides, we're best friends and I'm contractually obligated to give anyone who messes with you guys a knuckle sandwich."

She nodded, "Okay, I'm definitely not going to argue against that, but then can you please take it seriously. Exercise a little more. Get better at ghost hunting. I had nightmares, and Jazz said Danny did too, about that knife getting a little too close."

"Thought nightmares were your wet dreams," Tucker teased. Before Sam could 'help' him some more, he moved onto a relaxing cool down.

"I guess that's enough for today," Sam finally said.

"Any more and my body would've ripped itself apart. I've done a little research on exercise and they don't recommend starting a marathon straight out."

"That was not a marathon," Sam argued. At Tucker's side-long glance she backtracked, "Alright, alright, low and slow. I'll put the drill sergeant nasty away for the first couple of months."

"Good. I've done enough hospital time for three lives." Tucker shuddered, "Now that's a fate worse than death."

No it's not, Sam thought, but managed a very small smile. That smile dropped at the thought of what she could have done to Tucker. Torn muscles, or worse, torn tendons could take forever to heal.

"Are you okay? You didn't pull anything did you?"

Tucker tested his arms as he walked but shook his head. "Don't think so, everything's burning and I'm gonna curse you to hell tomorrow but nothing that feels like a pulled muscle."

That was good. As they walked she could see Tucker's stiff gait flow into something a little more natural. No limping or stumbling or carrying an arm close to his side like anything had been injured. Good. She glanced at his throat, amazed to see the scab and stitching was holding up after everything she put him through.

Now she found the ground fascinating. "I messed up," Sam stated.

"Just tone down on the Tucker trampling," he said placidly.

"I shouldn't have pushed you like that."

"Damn right, you know how much Nasty Burger I'm gonna need to recover from that?"

"I'm sorry."

Tucker paused mid-step. "Okay, my ears are experiencing technical difficulties because I did not just hear Sam Manson apologize."

Sam forced down a flicker of annoyance because he _needed_ an apology and she _was_ sorry, as exasperating as he could be. "You heard right Tucker…I'm sorry."

They continued walking. "Well a triple order of Mighty Meat Meltdowns to recover from this kind of trauma will go a long way—"

"No way! Eighty percent of getting in shape is diet and all that saturated fat and grease will turn you into a bowling ball!"

"Round is a shape."

"Not a good shape for ghost hunting. You need a proper diet." Sam stopped her cool-down walk and went into a tai chi pose.

"Yeah, it's called Atkins," Tucker said, mirroring the pose.

Sam relented, "Lean meat, but…" suddenly she smirked challengingly at him, "If you can match me in the gym final, I won't say another bad word about any diet you go on."

"Match you? I'll whoop your ass."

"If you can whoop my ass in the final I'll actually eat one of those Mighty Meaty Melts," Sam challenged. "But if I beat you, then you need to try the Vegan Special."

"What? That will kill my carefully cultivated carnivorous taste buds!"

"Think a vegan can beat you?" Sam teased.

"You speak sacrilege! Meat will never fail to vegetables."

"Ready to put your meat where your mouth is? When I beat you, not only do you eat the Vegan Special but half the food put in your mouth needs to come from a plant!"

"Oh, it's on!"


	9. Chapter 9

Suddenly Skulker was _there_ , nose to nose with Danny who raised face and sword instinctively. Moving tore at every wound he had, but self-preservation was a harsher mistress than pain and he dodged the ghost hunter and swung his sword in a less than fluid movement. The blow, instead of neatly severing the jetpack, only made Skulker stumble. Quickly, Danny slashed again, this time at the legs and Skulker leapt neatly over the strike to hover in mid air.

The jetpack sputtered. Skulker fell.

"Uh…what the hell happened to you? Your hair's all black! You look…" Dash trailed off, still gawking.

"Human," Danny finished, turning toward his bully. Dash actually flinched from that look. Letting out a calming breath, he tried not to blame the jock for the horrible crime of being here and having eyes. Projecting as much confidence as he possibly could, he explained. "This is what I looked like…before I died."

There. He'd spilled his secret. He'd confessed. Now Danny did his best to keep from blubbering, pleading for help; kept his stony mask from crumbling to dust at his feet. He would be damned before he cringed away from the jock now.

"Badass dude," Dash said. "So you're actually alive now?"

It took superheroic willpower to keep his jaw from falling. Surely Dash didn't just call Danny Fenton badass? Or…was it possible that the jock somehow didn't recognize his favorite victim? A flash of movement caught his eye and the hero turned.

A stranger staring at him.

Intellectually Danny knew he was looking in his sister's mirror, but this teen looked like a fighter, all covered in blood and bruises, hints of past fights in tough knuckles and raw scars. The stranger's black hair was limp, plastered to a lean face better suited to sarcastic quibs with eyes shadowed from too many brushes with death. The tatters of this teen's shirt barely covered any wounds. He looked more like a video game character—albeit one that lost—than the familiar geek.

The whine of a jet-pack broke his shock and Danny whipped around. "How the hell do you repair yourself so quickly? Dash, we can't wait. Get that bee!" Self-examination and his secret could wait until after Skulker ran out of missiles.

"A new addition to my suit, a pity your talents aren't so versatile."

One of the massive insects actually landed on the windowsill, heedless of the ghost battle beside it, presenting Dash with a perfect opportunity. But the bee looked monstrous and that stinger could probably kill Phantom, now that he was alive, let alone a puny jock.

Skulker's next missile collided dead-center with Danny's shield, crumpling metal like aluminum foil. "Now would be good!" he urged.

Dash took a wobbly step toward the bee, hands held hesitantly out in front of him.

"Nice to know his armor can't take his own weaponry," he remarked to himself as Skulker pressed the attack. If he still had flight, that knowledge would even be useful. Let the missiles follow him, fly straight to the ghost hunter, go intangible at the last possible second and boom! Problem solved. Let's see Skulker recover from _that_ in a couple of minutes.

Another missile tore through the bottom half of his shield, barely missing his legs. An arrow followed right behind it, sinking deep in a stab wound one of the spiders had left.

"Argh!" Danny collapsed, blood surging from the wound.

His knee hit the window ledge, just a little too far to the left.

Danny grasped desperately at the bloody ledge with white-knuckled hands. Muscles strained to pull his body back onto relative safety but only slid further, the other leg going over. Clutching fingers gripped nothing as his torso slipped away until only his arms were on the window sill. They didn't stay there for long. Muscles pushed to the brink of exhaustion wouldn't obey, not even the threat of death could spur them enough. Hanging from bloodless fingers, sweat drenching his face, he couldn't even raise his chin over the ledge.

"Damn….really can't do a proper chin-up…if my life depended on it! Why did Tetslaff have to…be right?"

Danny's fingers sunk into the red-stained wood, tendons and muscles popped with desperation but he couldn't do it, not with every motivation in the world could he do it. The last of his ghost powers were dead and his human body had been pushed long past its limits. Adrenaline wasn't enough. Without strength to get him over the edge or ghostly powers to negate gravity he would fall; he would hit the unforgiving ground.

He would die.

All because he was failing a class.

The halfa nearly laughed at the irony even as his fingers slid like molasses over the edge. Then Skulker appeared and Danny amended his earlier presumptions. He wasn't going to live long enough to hit the ground.

"Phantom! Jump!"

Below Dash clung to a bee buzzing like a crazy drunk, thrashing to free itself of the saddle. The chances of hitting the bee were low; the chances of surviving any other way non-existent. Pressing white tennis shoes on the window sill, Phantom launched himself toward the saddled bee.

 _This_ was the last irony of his life, doing the trust jump exercise with Dash.

He plunged through space, head twisting, body following, limbs spread, Dash and his bee zooming in his direction…

…only for the bee to swerve away. Danny reached out for a desperate grab and managed to snag one of the wings, sending the bee into a crazy spiral toward the ground. He tried pulling himself up, but that felt like pushing against a brick wall and the bee, with Dash still struggling to reach for him, fell faster.

Danny instantly let go. Dash made one more desperate grab…

Fingers brushed the back of his hand. Danny plunged toward unforgiving ground, Dash's screams in his ears.

And the whine of a jet-pack. The hunter ghost had yet another knife out, swooping out of the sky towards prey like a falcon. As fast as he was moving, Danny would be impaled.

Inspiration seized the superhero like salvation. Hoping he wasn't too close to the ground, Phantom spread his limbs to slow his fall again. The knife came for him first, attached to Skulker's right arm.

"So much for your natural abilities!"

With battle-honed reflexes, Danny grabbed the hunter's outstretched hand. The strength to pull himself up was gone, but he could still pull down with Skulker's momentum and yanked until he could curl an arm around the ghost hunter's throat. The ghost grappled for him, trying to pry him off but Danny clung like a limpet even as every muscle cried out to protest the torture.

An inch from the ground they shot sideways, straight into a grass blade thick as a bulletin board and about as flexible, then another and another until they hit something thankfully softer than the ground. Dazed and sprawled on the ground, aching in every fiber of his body that wasn't wounded, Danny tipped his head to the sky.

Meeting the insectile eyes of a very enraged bee.

"Oh shit."

The infuriated insect charged and Danny jumped to the side…or tried to. He moved like a car on its last drop of gasoline, the slightest of jolts, then a stumble turning to an ungainly roll on the ground as he tripped over something. The bee's lethal stinger brushed so close he stumbled again. Numb muscles convulsing, joints creaking like ancient, rusty armor, Danny staggered back to his feet. He felt the pain of an ancient warrior, going into battle long past retirement, but refusing to give up. This bee could help snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Dash was nowhere in sight. He had no sword, no shield, not even a saddle. But if he could just get control of it, just get over the head and onto the neck, he might be able to ride it to the ops center and the Crammer.

That thought alone kept him going.

Forcing his body to move strained as badly as the battle with Pariah Dark. He was past tired, past exhausted, past powers and adrenaline and anything but will to keep moving. Everything from his neck down desperately wanted to lie down and die if that meant rest. Only the habit of life, and the knowledge of death, kept his mind from agreeing with his body.

The bee attacked again and Danny crouched, wobbling as he did so, readying himself for just one more move. Just one more, then he could rest.

The bee charged like the Fright Knight, its stinger a lance.

Danny jumped.

The stinger impaled his bicep in mid-leap, flooding his body with poison. Liquid agony hit with the force of a dozen cobras bites. Only the experience of having a machine drain his very life force kept him from immediately blackening out into an abyss of pain.

Instead, as the first shock of agony rode away and the nerve-melting sensation became familiar, Danny forced himself to climb further, much to the shock of the bee that thought him dead. He hauled himself from the death grip he had on its head, onto the neck and spurred it upward with as mighty a kick as he could. The bee probably couldn't feel the light tap, but rose. Already his right arm was dying, limp and useless and flopping in the wind as poison raced toward his heart with every beat. He took deep, slow breaths to buy a few more precious minutes, but the familiar sensation of senses dimming overtook him.

"Phantom! Phantom that was so cool! I thought you were a goner," Dash shouted. "Woah! You don't look so good."

"Up." Danny managed to force through a venom-choked throat. "Now."

"Okay, hang on," Dash was sounding panicked. "You're not gonna die on me. You can't die, you're a ghost…"

Danny didn't have any reassuring words as the jock grabbed him from his bee and cried at his own steed until the insect flew them both inside the observatory. Hopefully the observatory, everything was getting darker…maybe, it was hard to tell. Dash's screaming and the bee's rapid wings muted into a distant background noise, easily ignored. His sense of touch turned inward, focusing on the fires of agony hunting the slowing, shuddering beat of his heart. The very organ that meant life was now struggling against death, just like before.

And losing.

"Oh God you're not a ghost! You can die! No, no, no, just hang on. Phantom! Phantom!" A voice was frantic, that meant bad things. That meant he was needed.

Crawling out of that void was like trying to escape a black hole, it shouldn't have been possible with the well of gravity so deep and steep, yet he managed to open leaden eyelids.

"Phantom please! I know I'm not the best gym buddy. I'm probably the worst! You'd be so much better off with Manson."

Yes he would, Sam might panic, but she was too experienced to panic as uselessly as this.

"But please wake up! I dunno which one is the weapon!"

Sluggishly, Danny gazed around the observatory. Weapons shone a dizzying array of stainless steel and ectoplasm green and so much bright and shiny to overwhelm his glassy gaze. A massive wall of eye-bleeding orange attracted his stare and he saw the crammer nestled in it. He tried to point this out, but his arm wasn't responding to his brain's commands. Was it gone? The other arm, just lift and point with the other arm.

Doing so was harder than a chin up after hours of abusing his upper-body but the panicking voices—the one in his ears and the one in the back of his mind—urged him. Four fingers curled, one stood out and then he was bodily yanked toward the invention by a screaming roller coaster. His strength sapped, his awareness faded and Danny knew bee poison succeeded where the ecto-suit and Pariah Dark had failed.

"Mr. Fenton's holding it? Phantom!" Dash screamed. The superhero went completely limp, his arm dangling, his body unmoving. Was he dead?

"Come on you stupid, puny bee!" he kicked and flailed at the insect, trying to get it to fly faster. Maybe there was still time, maybe Phantom was only resting. Yeah, just resting.

Because he couldn't possibly be dead.

Phantom was just tired from the job of hauling his puny stupid ass everywhere, which was why Dash couldn't be puny. It was more important now than ever for him to be not-puny. Like how Phantom, even alive, even an 'ordinary' boy, managed to radiate not-puniness like he was twice as tall as Dash. "Damn it! I'm supposed to be the best now git!" and he punched the insect.

The bee swerved, smashing his wet face into its prickly head. "No, no, the other way, towards the gun!" Dash screamed.

Suddenly Dr. Fenton's eyes narrowed and as Dash looked back, he could see the literal mountain of a man raise the gun toward them. But it was hopeless. Fentella couldn't hit a ball to save his life in gym and his father made him look like a sniper. Dash clenched his eyes shut to hold in the tears. A stupid, useless failure of a thing for a stupid, useless failure to do.

Blinding light just barely missed the jock.

Strength flooded Phantom! Fatal agony died to a mere welt on his upper arm. The wounds on his chest and limbs and sides shrank and knitted closed as he exploded with vitality and power. White beams of light appeared and instantly engulfed his form and Danny Phantom flew for no other reason than to revel in the unique blend of ghostly power and air filling living lungs. Oh! It was nothing he would take for granted ever again.

"What? It's not supposed to do that!" Jack Fenton yelled, glaring from Phantom to the weapon clutched in his hands. Saved by his father's unique brand of clumsy genius, of course. Before his dad could react, the superhero had overshadowed him and phased them both to the kitchen below.

"Phantom? Phantom what happened?" Dash's cries came out higher pitched than a mouse's squeaks as he gaped at where the superhero had been. He peeped in horror as a white glove came from nowhere to snatch bee and rider out of the air.

"Easy Dash, it's just me. One shot from this should cure you too." Danny Phantom, fully restored and looking like a giant to the puny Dash, sat the bully down, gripped the Crammer in both hands and aimed a blast at him.

"Oh wow! Back to normal size. Oh shit that hurt!" He glared at one of his many cuts and bruises. "Did I mention how much I hate being puny."

"Once or twice," Phantom said, taking apart the weapon.

"So…Mr. Fenton who saved our butts in the end?" Dash asked, looking a little more subdued.

Phantom laughed, "That's the way it works sometimes. How he can hit a person the size of an ant on top of a bee with that weapon but not hit the broad side of a barn." He shook his head in wonder. "Just as well though, as small as I was, that poison would've ended me." For a moment the superhero looked puny, eyes down and shoulders slumped.

The ghost hero took apart the last of the Fenton crammer and for good measure ecto-blasted several vital pieces into ash. He even found the blue-prints and burned those. Dash stared, blue eyes in unusually deep thoughts as Phantom prepared for the inevitable question.

"I'm…I'm sorry," Dash said. "I've been a sucky gym partner and you really needed me and I was blubbering like a girl…"

That was unexpected. "Eh, your first time in life-threatening danger. No one handles their first time well." Phantom stopped the systematic destruction for a moment and laid a comforting hand on Dash's shoulder. "You'll do better next time. Now this shouldn't shrink anyone else. Do you need a lift down?"

"Y-yeah," Dash nodded. "Thanks."

Phantom left Dash in the Fentons' backyard with a smile, a wave and a shouted "Next time!"

Dash nodded, silently promising that next time he would not fail. He never wanted to feel this death of hope, like his heart had sunk into the pit of his stomach, again. Never again did he want to fail someone who depended on him.

Dash found Fenton crawling out from behind some shrub in the back yard, rubbing his arm.

"Hey Fen…ton," Dash began in his intimidating voice but suddenly stopped. He had been a lousy gym partner to his hero, needing to be protected and dragged around and freaking out the whole time he wasn't fanboying like a geek. Fenton had barely started training. Fenton who could have even been Phantom: if the wimp shed all that puniness that clung to him like a skunk's stink, and worked out a little more, and had loads of scars, and a lot less crazy stupid hair and…okay, maybe not _that_ similar. Next time. Okay, he knew Fenton didn't deserve it, being so lazy. Looking like Phantom's nerdy, gangly kid brother shouldn't have made a difference, but Dash would give him this one chance and so help Fentoid if he blew it.

Besides, Phantom helped ungrateful jerks all the time.

"You'd better be serious about gym from now on Fenton. Do what I do. Now we start with warm-ups. Warm up before every exercise routine you do."

Danny actually smiled at Dash; maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Then he grimaced as a stretch tugged at raw, barely knitted flesh.

"Hey! You pay attention to this!"

Maybe not.


	10. Chapter 10

"…and there was a fucking _horde_ of giant spider monsters." Dash spread his arms as though to encompass that number. And failed. "A hundred times worse than a horror movie and they were all coming right at us and I fought a good four or five," he punched thin air. Kwan leaned away. "But Phantom! He took on practically the whole army of them. Hell that guy got into so many fights and he had great bloody wounds on his chest and on his face and arms and everywhere and he still kept going!"

"How's he bleeding if he's a ghost? Ghosts don't bleed according to—" Star began.

"He does," said Dash. "And this machine we got hit with, it was turning him human. Turning him living again so he bled red and everything!"

"Really, what did he look like?" Paulina asked.

Overhearing that, the very marrow in Danny's bones froze and he held his body up, listening.

Dash didn't even look his way replying. "Badass, like the kid that constantly got into fights when he was in school. Maybe a basketball or baseball player or something."

"More like a badass ball player," Kwan said admiringly.

"Fenton, you can stop holding that chin-up now," Tetslaff said. Whole body trembling, Danny lowered himself.

"He must have been the champ," Paulina went a little starry eyed. Danny barely suppressed a snicker at the irony before dropping to the ground, done with the last of his chin-ups and the last of his fitness test. Automatically his arm wiped at the sweat. Pausing at the last second, he dabbed to keep the makeup from coming off. The last thing he needed was to show off his shiny new facial scar, especially when people were still pestering Dash for details about what Phantom looked like alive.

What a weird thing to think.

Sam and Tucker turned their last lap, jogging neck and neck in the mile run as the pair had been for every event. He shook his head in wonder; what kick in the rear had they given each other?

"Wow! Never knew Tucker was that good," Valerie remarked. "I always wrote him off as a techno-geek."

"His PDA must be on the line," Danny said. "Or his Meaty Mighty Meltdowns."

"Sam's doing much better than first term too." Valerie cleared her throat but didn't quite face Danny. "So…you doing okay? Dash must have been tough."

Danny shrugged. "Not that bad. He got on the wrong side of a Fenton invention," he quickly turned away from the scowl on Valerie's face. "Well after getting his ass kicked he took it easy for the first few days." Rubbing his neck awkwardly, Danny added, "Heh, just as well or he would've torn me up."

"You did well," Valerie complimented.

"Thanks. Um…" courage Fenton, courage, "Val? We…"

"Shit!"

"Damn!"

"A tie!" Tetslaff boomed as Tucker and Sam hit the finish line simultaneously, panting for breath. "You two passed and with flying colors." She glanced between Danny and Tucker. "I'm impressed. Congratulations to Dash and Sam for being such excellent trainers. Dismissed!"

Tucker rolled his eyes and Danny sighed as Valerie's back vanished into the girl's locker room. "Typical."

"Typical," Tucker echoed, heading to their changing rooms. "Good thing I don't do this for her praise. Meat may not have triumphed but neither did vegetables!" He pumped a fist.

Danny said. "Actually after everything that test was easy."

"Did Dash put you through the wringer?" Tucker asked. "Sam sure did, even after I got her to cool down on the marathons. Hardly had time to do anything but hunt with you, do school work and train. I think this is the first real conversation we've had in three weeks." He grinned mischievously, "She's a tough lover."

Danny glanced around just to make certain the locker room was deserted. "Right, haven't told you yet. Dash and I were struck by dad's ghost shrink ray—"

Tucker laughed, "Oh that must have been hilarious."

When Danny took off his shirt, Tucker's laughter stopped. Being hit by the Fenton Crammer the second time around had restored his healing abilities, turning wounds to scabs in minutes, scabs to fresh scars in days and pink scars to white ones within weeks. The jagged wounds from all those spiders still didn't look any prettier for healing fast. His chest especially looked like someone had tried to tear his heart out with a rusty chainsaw. Makeup ran off with sweat, exposing his shiny new facial scar.

"I nearly died from a bee sting because the amount of poison was about half my new body weight," Danny added softly.

Tucker shut his mouth. "Dude…you need to get into shape. I mean another close call like that. You're luck's warranty is gonna to run out…has run out…" Was this what inspired Sam to be such a ball-buster? A scar that could have been a gaping wound on a corpse? The sudden urge to make sure a best friend never got so close to death again. The technogeek choked back laughter. How ironic, lecturing his best friend on life-threatening heroics when newly healed flesh still tugged when he stretched it too far.

"Pot, kettle," Danny teased. "Besides, Jazz had to help patch me up a little after and she already put me through the wringer."

As they abandoned the solitude of the locker room Tucker added, "We should both make this a habit, work out every day. We don't ghost-hunt all the time."

And maybe there was some armor he could build Danny...or himself. Go the Iron Man route. Tucker's mind was already whirling with ideas.

"Yes but most of our free time is spent gaming or watching movie marathons. Willing to give up DOOMED and the Dead Teacher series?" Sam asked, catching up with them.

"If that's what it takes," Tucker said seriously.

"Actually we could try working out and watching movies at the same time," Sam suggested.

"Either way I'm going to," Danny said. "Actually after the whole shrink-ray incident Dash took the trainer thing seriously instead of using it as wailing time. Teaching me warm ups, stretches for all the muscle groups, the best foods to eat and the best exercises to do." His voice dropped slightly. "Ghost fighting got me into decent shape but it's not enough. If it hadn't been for Dad I'd probably be…well, dead. No…I would be dead."

A shadow looming down the hall clammed him up, but the trio relaxed as a familiar face drew closer, "Hey Jazz, guess what we passed that fitness test. A plus!"

"Congratulations! You know if you want to keep in shape I've got this cool program mom and dad invented. It's a helmet that projects holographic ghosts to fight. Gives you a workout and," her voice dropped a little, "Practice at the same time." Speaking normally she added, "I've been using it to train for the upcoming fitness test for months now."

"Sounds cool. Actually I was thinking of asking mom for some martial arts lessons now that Dash isn't hogging all my free time with training. Could have used them a few weeks ago. Maybe it's something we should all do?"

"Of course, that's an excellent idea. I could use a refresher," said Jazz.

"Count me in," Tucker said, taking his hand and shaking it.

"Me too," added Sam.

"Hey Fentoid!" Dash came around the corner with Kwan trailing behind, an enthusiastic grin on his face. Suddenly the jock's mind caught up with his mouth and he stopped, smile dropping off his face.

The halfa froze. Beneath new, carefully applied makeup his scar itched beneath that intense gaze. This wasn't the first time Dash looked at him weirdly, but was he finally going to put the pieces together?

"Nevermind, I'll…deal with you later. Come on Kwan." The other boy actually beamed at his best friend, following him away from the trio.

"Okay…that was weird," Sam summed up.

"Did aliens abduct Dash?" Tucker asked.

"Danny are you okay?" Jazz asked.

"He might know," Danny whispered. "At the end of the whole shrink ray incident I transformed. My clothes were pretty much a mess and the rest of me wasn't much better…and he didn't seem to recognize me as Phantom then but…" The superhero shook his head. "He's been like that for nearly a month now. Not fanboying or anything thank goodness but…nice…for him anyway."

"I don't think you have to worry Danny," Jazz said. "If he didn't figure it out within the first day his fine-detail memory of Phantom's human form is probably already gone."

"But he _never_ stops picking on people," Tucker pointed out. "I mean he isn't even like Kwan who does it just to keep his spot on the A-list. Dash actually enjoys wailing on people for shits and giggles. Maybe he has figured things out and isn't telling anyone."

"Nah, it would have to get through that brick skull," said Sam.

"Dash hasn't ever been in a true life or death situation before the shrink ray," Jazz pointed out.

"Well, not like that. Probably reality's big punch in the face," Danny said.

"Exactly. Maybe just the punch he needed to mature a little out of his bullying tendencies. After all he did fail his hero and some part of him must have realized he survived only because of dumb luck. Often we learn more from our mistakes than our successes."

Danny reflexively clutched his arm. "If you say so Miss Successful; I'm not gonna hold my breath. Enjoy it while it lasts: yes. Believe that he's been converted to the friendship movement: no."

As the quartet left for Fentonworks, Dash followed them with contemplating eyes.

"Hey Kwan, you ever notice how much Fent-on looks like Phantom?"

AN: I'd like to thank everyone for their support and reviews. Your comments and questions shaped this story into something much better than what I'd written on my own! Thank you so much, I'm so grateful! As for Dash's little part-revelation…well we'll see what comes of that. Dash has gotten a much-needed knock upside the head by reality…which is why I had Jack Fenton save the day in the first place. He's exactly the sort of person who would do that accidentally and honestly 1) I couldn't see Dash stepping up to be the badass hero (at least not yet) and save Danny, that's too OoC. 2) If Dash did rescue Phantom his attitude wouldn't have changed, at least not as much as if he'd lost. Nothing teaches like failure and Dash, for all his physical prowess and football wins, failed when it counted most: with his hero.

PS: If you do become inspired to exercise, Tucker's advice of starting low and slow is much better than Sam's advice of starting marathons, just as several reviewers have said. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it even more than I did writing it!


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